Legend of PowerWobble, Part II

The first day of class finds me, the new kid, the kid from private school, looking all proud, cocky and khaki clad.

I was lost, aching, and scared.

The seventh grade was stratified into three groups or teaching levels. There was the "A" group, these were the gifted kids. Then there was the "B" group, these were the bright, "normal" kids. Then there was the "C" group. The "C" group was home to the criminally insane, and mentally/emotionally "challenged" students.
Since there was no admissions testing or maybe because I looked like a criminally insane preppy kid, on the first day of school I found myself in the "C" group sitting next to Doug Booger. I don't really recall his last name, but I do remember his affinity for anything that came out of his nose. Doug Booger was HUGE! Like Darth Vader HUGE (he also had a weird thing for Vader). Doug Booger and that banjo kid from Deliverance could've been related, except Doug Booger weighed 250 pounds!

The first thing anybody said to me that day was Doug Booger saying "luhk it dis" as he's yanking out a crusty one.

I pretended not to hear him.

Pretending not to hear Doug was just the opening that MarWitt, the lead "C" group bully and resident felon needed to try and goad me into a fight.

"Hey. Hey. Purdy-boy! You too good tuh tawk?"

I pretended not to hear him either. At this point I was wishing I was deaf. Hell, at this point I was wishing I was dead.

"Uhm tawkin' to you boy. Ya come hee-uh like you awe dat. I tair yer shit uhp"

I'm sitting there not about to blink. Silent.

Just about the time all of this is happening the teacher walks in.

"M s . H o l l o w a y" she writes on the board, taking great care to underline the "Ms." part for emphasis.

"Not Miss. Not Mrs. Mizzz Holloway." She announced as she clapped her hands of the chalk dust.

And oh my GOD! She's... She's black!

Up until then, I'd never had a black teacher. Race wasn't an issue at my old school, it was a private school. Up until right then, I never knew what it was "private" from. Up until that very moment, I had lived a very sheltered, very segregated life.

I'm sitting in my desk, on one side of me I've got the biggest monster of a kid I've ever seen, picking his nose and offering me a booger sandwich. On the other side I've got the roughest kid I've ever seen wanting to beat me senseless for no reason other than I'm different. In front of me I'm trying to cope with my new teacher, who is unlike any I've ever seen before. And inside of me, my shoulder hurt everytime I blinked.

I learned more coping skills in those first few minutes than I ever have since.

"Hey boy. Lunch. At lunch it gone be meuhn you."

I stared forward, still silent. MarWitt whispered on about how he's going to beat me up. He was brutal, and scary. It wasn't one of those little men syndrome things either, he was the real deal. In hindsight, I'm sure the kid had some pretty serious issues with aggression/violence as well as a low self-esteem thing.

Psychobabble didn't mean shit to me that day.

By now it was mid-morning and I was sweating every minute that counted down to lunch. Also word had spread around the class that MarWitt had it in for "new kid".

I knew I was going to have to deal with this situation on my own. I damned sure realized that if I wimped out and went told the teacher about MarWitt's threats then it would only get worse, and I would be bullied for the rest of the school year.

"Boy. You a faggit? You luhk like a faggit."

"I don't want to fight you." I told him at one point.

"Din dawn't faggit. Uhm still gawn beat 'cho azz at lunch."

Lunch. The showdown was set.

Like in a bad western, I guess "lunch" equated to high noon.

The hands on the clock were now showing 11:30.